Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Hot paws and annoying attitudes

Last week, I was rather suddenly made aware that I had a tiny wound on my right hand pinkie, near the top of my nail, right where you’d expect a hangnail to be if you had one.

I didn’t. I know this because I looked. Repeatedly. Because the way this invisible wound decided to get attention was to suddenly become infected.

And I mean, it was sudden-sudden. Like I had no knowledge that there was even a thing going on that morning, and then almost between one keystroke and the next on the keyboard the whole thing just…happened.

Except that clearly it didn’t, because wounds don’t get infected / hot swollen / gross that quickly. It had to have been simmering for a while without me noticing it before it suddenly erupted into flamesgot hot, started swelling, and exhibiting other signs of infected-wound status.

I tell you what: I learned that I type a lot harder than I thought I did, and also that I don’t strike the key squarely with the middle of the pad of that pinkie, but rather a bit on the right side of it.

Also, I can still cuss very inventively indeed, given the proper motivation. Such as the fact that poking at the sore finger caused it to – and who could possibly see this coming – really @^*&@ing hurt!

Which is a load off my mind, because I was a little afraid that I was mellowing with age or something on that front. @^*(&@!

I still have no idea what actually caused it; there’s a big scab now, but I happen to know that underneath that scab there is not an equally big wound. The scab is that size because the microscopic wound bled a great deal, and had a great deal of, um, uh, not-blood stuff as well, and that’s what has hardened into this scab, and probably if I wanted to scrub at it a bit I would find that the “real” scab was just as microscopic as the original wound. But, I am a big fat chicken wise enough not to go poking at something that has only just decided to do me the courtesy of starting to heal, so, the oversized scab will be staying put until it decides to fall off.

It is in times like these that I have to just kind of laugh at myself – I can be amazingly stubborn sometimes. The sensible thing might have been to stop doing things that hurt, but, no way.

I’ll just figure out how to type without using the pinkie. So there. I’ll knit a little slower while I figure out a different way to tension. Ha! Plus, it’s not really that bad, you just need to not keep focusing on it, that’s what you need to do.

It is also in times like these when I realize just how annoying I must be sometimes. I can’t help it: I always think things will work out, one way or another. And that meanwhile, the best thing we can do is to do our best, try to work around it or work it out, just DON’T LET IT WIN, WHATEVER IT IS.

Really, it’s a bit of a wonder that nobody has just up and smacked me for being that way when they were trying to feel properly grumpy about something.